Kingdom Come
by katinki
Summary: -Refusing to pursue her, he left Forks to face forever alone. Six years have gone by, and the day he dreaded the most has now come to pass. -When he didn't show up for class, she was left confused, not understanding why he had to go. Though time passed and her life went on, she never forgot him. -A mysterious package arrives in the mail and it changes everything. AU.
1. Prologue

**Kingdom Come**

**Summary:** -Refusing to pursue her, he left Forks to face forever alone. Six years have gone by, and the day he dreaded the most has now come to pass. -When he didn't show up for class, she was left confused, not understanding why he had to go. Though time passed and her life went on, she never forgot him. -A mysterious package arrives in the mail and it changes everything. AU.

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><p><em>March 12, 2011<em>

_Alice, she's marrying him. _

_I knew it would happen one day. I've always known, ever since that day… I saw it, even without your eyes. She would grow. She would change. She would love someone some day. _

_He asked her yesterday, out by the cliffs. With the rare, winter sun shining on her face and her hair whipping in the wind, nothing on earth or in heaven will ever compare. It's all I can see now. Her, with him. She looked so… happy. _

_I can't bear this anymore. I can't see her like this and not feel like I'm dying. I can't keep doing this to myself, but I'm terrified that I can't stop it either. _

_This… this sick obsession is all that I have of her. Little snippets of her life. Glimpses of everything I want but can't have. I should have listened to you. I should have tried to be more than the monster I am. _

_It's too late. I can't now. Not when she looks at him like that, not when he makes her laugh, not when she calls him her sun. _

_Not when all I'll ever be is night. _

_I love her, Alice. _

_I love her so much that she's destroying me. _

_I love her enough to let her go, enough not to interfere, no matter what it means for me. _

_Please ask Carlisle to forgive me. Tell him I'm sorry and that none of this is his fault. _

_You have to understand. If you were me and she were Jasper… _

_I have to do something. I can't come home. I can't do this anymore. I have to end this before I can't. _

_-E_

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><p><strong>AN:** Blame this whole story on Imagine Dragons and their song _Demons, _which has haunted my brain since it first came out. The title and inspiration are theirs. Twilight is still very much Stephenie Meyer's. I got nothing, yo.

This fic isn't canon, but it'll probably be the closest thing to it that I've ever written. It's a "what if" that deviates the morning after Edward crept into Bella's room, watched her through the night, and realized that he loved her.

Don't have an update schedule. Unbeta'd. All my usual warnings may apply.


	2. Chapter 1

"What time do you want me to pick you up?"

Turning the blinds, I stared out into the wet, cold Washington winter and pressed my palm against the glass.

_Gray. _

Everything was gray this time of year, from the gravel drive that needed grading to the dime-sized droplets hanging frozen from the branches by the window. At the edge of the yard, where Charlie's old rake had finally given up the ghost, broken fragments of decaying leaves danced, swirling and twirling against the muted sky.

Beyond, spruce and hemlock lined up like giant soldiers, like they were guarding the forest from civilization. Today, even they had lost their color.

"Earth to Bella…"

My lips curved at the playful huff, and I turned back toward the room, giving myself a little shake. "Sorry. I guess I zoned out for a minute."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"What were you saying?"

Jacob laughed, and the warmth of it made my cheeks crease. "I was asking you what time you wanted me to pick you up tonight?"

"The bonfire is still on?" I plopped down on the fluffy purple comforter that Charlie had never bothered to swap out while I was away. Soft and worn, the fabric slid like silk beneath my fingertips. I stole a glance out the window and shivered. "Jake, it's freezing. Literally."

"Hence the bonfire." He laughed again. "Don't worry. I'll keep you warm."

Which was probably true. Jake was a furnace.

"Plus," he said, his voice dropping into something more serious. "I want to tell everyone. Make it official."

Slouching back against the pile of pillows, I held my hand up to the light. The pretty, delicate stone I still wasn't used to seeing winked and glittered. "Come on, like they don't already know."

I was teasing him, even though it was true. All of them – Embry, Quil, Jared, and Paul – they were all thick as thieves. And Billy had been calling me his _other daughter_ since before I'd left for college.

"It's different now, you know that. I want you to be there tonight, with me."

I shook my head, but when Jacob said things like that, in that tone, where he made it seem like I was his very reason for breathing, my toes and fingers didn't stand a chance. "I guess…"

"I'll show you I guess… _afterward_."

Warmth curled low in my stomach, because Jake could definitely _show_. "Yeah?"

The phone suddenly went quiet, like he'd covered it up with his hand. When he came back, I knew he'd stepped outside. One of his neighbor's dogs howled in the distance. "Your dad's working tonight, right?"

"Yeah," I told him, hugging my arms around my middle. The charm he'd carved for me last Christmas – a tiny russet-colored wolf, rendered in incredible detail – dug into my wrist. "I don't think he knows what to do with me back in the house. He's got nights all week."

Jacob made a low, rough sound in the back of his throat. "Good."

The warmth curled tighter and climbed up my neck. "Why's that?"

"Because you're finally home for good and you're finally mine."

Most of the time I rolled my eyes when Jacob said nonsense like that, but today, something was different. There was heat and a growling want in his voice, and I couldn't decide if I liked it, or if it made me want to run screaming through the woods. Maybe both. "Jake, I–

Someone banged on the downstairs door.

My heart skipped a beat, and I bolted upright, knocking over the pile of books I'd just unpacked as I went to the window without even thinking. I guess it was some habit, some effect of being back in this room again.

But the driveway stood empty, the trees beyond silent and still.

_Nothing. _

Nothing, but the wet, cold, _gray_ Washington winter.

"Bella?" I could hear Jacob saying through the phone, as right on cue, another triplet of bangs echoed up the stairs and through the hall.

"Crap." I blew out a shaky breath as my brain finally started functioning again. I wanted to kick myself for being so jumpy. "It's just someone at the door. Probably the mail guy. Charlie said he'd ordered some kind of fishing stuff. Let me call you back."

"Bu–"

"Just a sec. Love you."

Like always, I could hear him grinning. "Call me back. Love you, too."

To make up for my stalling, I pounded down the narrow stairs, past the wall of embarrassing photos that Charlie refused to take down, and took a shortcut over the coffee table to get to the living room door. Instinct had me grabbing the knob, but being my father's daughter, and after more than a few close calls over the years, I peered through the peephole, only to find an empty porch. "Damn it."

Hoping I wouldn't have to chase down whatever Charlie had ordered, I threw open the door. Damp, icy wind smacked into my face and cut straight through the thin fabric of my tee. It smelled like snow and pine and smoke from someone's chimney. As I stepped to the edge of the porch, I squinted against relentless gray.

Something moved.

Across the street, deep in between the soldier trees, where it was dark and I couldn't really see, I swore that I caught a flash of color. Something bright, and moving fast. Something that didn't match its surroundings.

But I blinked and just like that, it was gone.

"What the…" Another gust of wind whipped across the porch, making my teeth chatter. Shoving wild strands of hair out of my eyes, I looked harder, but found nothing but bark and gray-green needles. Muttering under my breath – how I'd now lost it for sure – I finally turned to go back inside.

Then I saw it.

Placed neatly by the door against the wall sat a cardboard box that I'd not seen before. About the size of the ones they use for copier paper, the thing was unmarked and industrial brown, with nothing more than a single string tied around the center. A square of plain white paper had been tucked underneath.

Forcing myself to move, I tried to pick it up, only to realize that whatever was in there wasn't light. When I jostled it, it felt and sounded like… _books_ and paper. Curious, ignoring the biting cold for a second, I slid the paper from beneath the string, nearly dropping it when I read the strange, sweeping cursive inside. It simply said:

_For Bella._


	3. Chapter 2

Slowly thawing, I slid into a straight back chair and dumbly stared into the box on the table, not quite sure what I was looking at. And more importantly, why it'd been sent to _me_.

Either way, lit by the warm, yellow light from the fixture above, what I could only describe as someone's _life_ gazed back at me.

_Twin stacks of leather journals, worn and softened by countless touches. _

_A pile of tiny burgundy velvet boxes, scarred, scratched, and as old as the ones in Grandma Swan's secret drawer. _

_Fancy gilded picture frames, tarnished to nearly black at the edges. _

_A faded gray folio filled with newspaper clippings and other sorts of dog-eared papers. _

_Tied-up bundles of yellowed cards and letters. _

_A baseball, scuffed and dingy, missing half its stitching. _

_Age_ permeated the entire contents, along with something else I couldn't quite name, other than as I continued to look inside, waffling between closing the thing right back up and digging in, my chest tightened. This stuff had been important to someone at one time – stuff worth keeping and remembering and cherishing – but now, sitting here on a stranger's table, thrown together into some old box, it looked like it had been abandoned or worse, forgotten.

My pocket buzzed, breaking the spell.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself." Jake made a little huffing sound. "It's been nearly thirty minutes. What happened?"

I rolled my eyes, because he was being, well, _Jacob_, and for some reason, he was always more _Jacob_ when I was here in Forks than when I was out of town. "Yeah, I know. Sorry about that." My fingertip traced the lip of the box. "Hey, did you or Billy send me something?"

"No." He drew out the 'o', and I could just see his face all scrunched up and confused. "Why?"

Drawn by the curlicue edge of one of the frames, I finally made my choice and started to reach inside my mystery package. "Nothing, no big deal," I told him, propping the phone between my ear and shoulder. "I think my mom must have sent some of her mom's old stuff."

"Yeah, like what?"

I frowned at the creeping edge that I had to be imagining. "Meh, looks like it's just some old trinkets and keepsakes." Wedged between the journals, the frame took a few seconds of gentle tugging and sawing before it finally came free. "She and Phil are moving again, so she was probably just cleaning out the attic and forgot to tell me she'd sent it. You know how she is."

Jacob snorted. "Yeah, I do. Are they going to–"

I flipped the frame over in my lap, and the rest of Jake's words drowned in the white noise that abruptly crashed all around me. The kitchen took a dizzying spin, pulsing in and out of focus, and as my eyes traced the figure behind the glass, the strongest sense of déjà vu I'd ever experienced sucked the air right out of my chest.

Washed in shades of sepia faded by age and the sun, a young man of no more than twenty stared back at me.

Tall, lean, and meticulously suited in the style of the times, the boy in the portrait was _striking_, with a Hollywood face cut by strong, straight lines, bright, dancing eyes, and a pile of dark, rusty hair that resisted all pomade and combs' attempts at taming. His was a face that drew the eye and didn't let go.

As much as I appreciated a good-looking guy, that wasn't why my lungs stopped working.

No, I couldn't breathe because I _knew_ this good-looking guy.

While I hadn't seen this face in at least six years, my mind recognized Edward Cullen the same as if I were right there, right now, sitting at that table in junior biology, wondering why he hated me so much when everything single thing he did fascinated me.

My chest tightened even more, making my heart thump loud enough I could hear it over the static still buzzing my ears.

Countless nights I'd thought about where Edward Cullen had gone and why he'd just… left like that, without a word or warning, leaving so many unanswered questions and what ifs.

So many nights after he'd supposedly, _"gone back to Alaska_," I'd huddled under the covers in my little bed upstairs, trying to figure out what super power he had that had let him stop Tyler's van from squishing me like it should have, wondering why he'd wanted me to forget everything I'd seen, and then deciding I didn't really care what he was or why he'd saved me… if he would just come back.

So many days I'd hated the empty chairs he left behind and spent far too many hours fooling myself into thinking that after so many weeks of conscious avoidance, there really had been something else there when he'd stared at me that final day. I'd never forgotten that – that _look_ in his eyes when we argued over him saving my life. He'd said it was best that we weren't friends, but I'd replayed that moment a thousand times, and that wasn't what his eyes had said.

I shook my head, trying to physically wrench myself out of the quagmire of bittersweet teenage memory.

Because the boy in the photograph couldn't be Edward Cullen.

No way, no how.

It had to be some kind of weird coincidence – after all, didn't they say everyone had a doppelganger somewhere?

"Are you zoning out again?" Jake's voice cut through the lingering static.

"What?" Shaking my head again, I cleared my throat to buy some time. "Yeah, a little. Sorry, I think I'm getting a headache or something."

I didn't know why I lied to Jacob. Maybe it was because I was being silly and reminiscent. Or because I knew he wouldn't understand. Or maybe it was because Edward Cullen, however little interaction we'd actually had, had always been a secret treasure and ache kept locked away, something I'd never told a soul – a mystery I'd held onto just for me.

"Ah, sorry, babe. I should have figured. You seemed off before." Chimes tinkled and boards creaked, telling me he was pacing his porch. "It's probably good then that they're postponing the bonfire after all."

"What's going on?"

"They just updated the weather." Jake tsked like he always did when he was annoyed. "You were right. Looks like it's going to get really nasty tonight."

"That sucks." Guilt crawled in my stomach. "Do you still want to come over?"

In the background, his neighbor's dog kept howling. Another joined in. "I'd love to… but it looks like I need to stick around here and help dad with the pipes in case it freezes."

"Okay, tell your dad I said hi."

"I will." I could hear him grinning. "So I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

Staring down at the familiar stranger behind the glass, I swallowed, but when I glanced up, instantly drawn to the tied-up bundle of yellowed cards and letters sitting on top of the journals, a kind of mild electricity surged across my skin, making fingers literally itch to grab them.

"Bells?"

"Yeah," I said, swallowing again, even as I reached for the letters. "Tomorrow."

"Love you."

"You too."


	4. Chapter 3

_March 3, 2005_

_You're wrong, Alice. _

_There is a different path – a different future. _

_I see it now. I understand what I must do. _

_I will never allow the monster to have her, no matter the strength of her song, no matter the scorching fire that courses down my throat. That future – her, so still, so broken and pale in my arms – shall never come to pass. I cannot bear that – a world in which she doesn't exist… because of me. I cannot bear what it would do to me. I will destroy myself before I allow him to consume her. _

_And I reject your alternative. _

_She is too good – too kind and brave and selfless. She is light, where I am darkness, and I refuse to force her into this… empty, soulless half-life we lead through my own weakness and selfishness. I will not condemn her. She would surely despise me for eternity. _

_But you were right about one thing. _

_I do love her. I know that now. After last night – that moment when she uttered my name and asked me to stay – I am no longer the same man I was before. _

_In the same way that it happened for all of you, I will always love this girl, for the rest of my limitless existence. _

_Please understand, it's because I love her, I will leave her. I will circumvent your two futures._

_I don't know what this will do to me. It doesn't matter. Her life is more important. _

_I know this isn't the choice you and the others wanted me to make, but please, please do one thing for me. _

_Watch over her for me. _

_She is so incredibly fragile. _

_All the more reason for me to stay away. _

_-E_

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><p><strong>AN:** as mentioned in the note at the bottom of the prologue, this story deviates from canon right after Edward snuck into Bella's bedroom and watched her sleep. Instead of staying, he chose to leave for good. See Midnight Sun, pg109.


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